Denver area residents were treated to some fun over the weekend with reports of the purchase of a 432-acre former campus of Storage Technology by a "mystery buyer," for as much as $60 million. The buyer insisted on absolute secrecy from everyone involved in the deal, including Sun Microsystems, which owned the campus. "It's like dealing with the CIA," said one broker associated with the transaction. The negotiations were so secretive that the Associated Press reported Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp., as saying, "We don't even know it is a te [...]

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Garett Rogers reminded me of Google's Solar Panel Project, where Google installed about 9,000 solar panels at their headquarters to help power the offices. Google offers a status report of how much energy was generated from those panels. The latest reading says, "In the last 24 hours, Google produced 644 kilowatt-hours of electricity from the sun." In other words, the solar panels generated enough power to complete 402 dishwasher cycles for that day. [...]

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Steve Yegge, an engineer at the Google Kirkland office, recently posted to the Google blog about the Kirkland office's third birthday. He also announced the opening of an engineering office in Fremont. Both locations are in the Seattle area -- Fremont is just north of downtown and Kirkland is across the floating bridge on the east side (near another company you may have heard of called Microsoft). Yahoo also recently announced the opening of a new engineering office in the Seattle area. Theirs will be in Bellevue, which is also on the east side, near that little-known Redmond company. Both Ya [...]

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Google opens San Francisco office from News.com reports Google has finally opened a San Francisco office. The office was opened this past Monday and is located on Spear Street in the tech-heavy South of Market area. Many Google employees commute each day from San Francisco to Mountain View. It appears that some might stop commuting and will begin walking to work. Google said in a statement: SF is significant to Google as we have many users, employees, advertisers and publishers here, and it is an important base for recruiting. We are happy to have a presence in the city that will allow us [...]

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Anyone who believes that the United States is a truly free market should think again. The US government is in so many instances the gatekeeper or arbiter for the spoils of public assets, such as wireless spectrum. And Google has discovered how central political favor in Washington to its fortunes. In 2005 Google opened an office in Washington, D.C. and hired outside lobbying firms to advocate on its behalf with Congress. Now, according to this Fox News report, it has hired an "in-house" lobbyist. This represents a ratcheting up of its efforts on Capitol Hill. There are a great many issues at [...]

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I was at Google last month and did a double-take at the wall art up near one of the mini-kitchens. It featured familiar cereal brands morphed with Google personalities like Larry Page (Larryos) and Sergey Brin (Raisin Brin). I shot a few pictures, below, plus here's some of the backstory. Google's fairly famous for its mini-kitchens that offer all types of food for Googlers to snack on. Cereal was long one of the key offerings. I can remember being back in the first original Googleplex seeing bins filled with cereal. I think Larry and Sergey in particular are cereal lovers, [...]

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Suit filed against state Google incentives from Triangle Business Journal reports that the North Carolina Institute for Constitutional Law has filed a lawsuit to challenge the incentives given to Google to build a server farm in North Carolina. The advocacy group claims the incentives violate various laws and provisions in the state's constitution. Joining the group in the lawsuit are Barbara Howe, the Libertarian Party's gubernatorial candidate in 2000 and 2004, and Michael Munger, the 2008 candidate. [...]

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Google to build data center in Iowa from the Associated Press reports Google has confirmed rumors that they will be building a data center in Iowa. The data center is expected to cost $600 million and open in spring of 2009. Although Google is only using 55-acre site in Council Bluffs, they purchased 1,185 acres so they can expand in the future. Iowa gave Google a tax incentive by passing a bill that would "exempt electricity and capital investment requirements from sales tax for computer-related businesses," said BusinessWeek. Let's tack Iowa onto the list of US states where Google now h [...]

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Google to Open Research Center In Shanghai from the Wall Street Journal reports Google is planning on opening a research and development center in Shanghai, China in an effort to gain market share from Baidu. The R&D center is expected to open on June 25, 2007, with a focus on researching Chinese-language Internet searches. Previously, Google said it would give Google China more freedom from Google in general so it could keep up with the growth of China. [...]

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Google makes it official, they're moving into an industrial park where citizens of Pryor Creek, Oklahoma were already thrilled about for having attracted Gatorade. Pryor Mayor, Jimmy Tramel said, "Gatorade and Google are just unbelievable to think about," he adds "What's next?" Tulsa World reports the initial Google construction can bring in $400 million and have a continued impact of $14 million to the entire area. Oklahoma, Where The Google Comes Sweepin' Down The Plain from us covers the earlier rumors of a Google move plus how Oklahoma becomes the latest in many states to have Google op [...]

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Google reportedly to build data center in Belgium from MarketWatch reports that Google is going to spend 250 million EUROs (about $341 million US) on a data center in Belgium. The news is a bit interesting because we know Google hasn't seemed that welcome in Belgium, at least by some of the newspapers. there. See Google lost against Belgium newspapers for more on that. I guess this is just one more country for Danny to add to his Oklahoma, Where The Google Comes Sweepin' Down The Plain article. [...]

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From California, Google has spread out across the great land of the United States. New York! Washington! Arizona! And now which of the fifty nifty United States is Google heading to next? Oklahoma! Below, some news of Google's plans for the Sooner State and well as a recap of what other states it has conquered over time, as it builds the United States Of Google. Google is eyeing Pryor Creek, Oklahoma. Since the industrial park has its own power plant, the smart money is that Google will be placing another of its energy-guzzling data centers there (shouldn't they all go out in the desert now [...]

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We noted the great Google python rampage in headlines yesterday, but the story continues. Since it's a slow news day, so why not. On April 1, the python pet of a Google employee in New York got loose. No joke. The python was found yesterday, and no one was harmed. Not even the python. Need to know more? Valleywag's been all over the story. Links to them and others below: RUMORMONGER: Python on the loose at Google NY, Valleywag Latest Google search: A python in the office, CNN/Money Snake slithering through Googleplex, News.com The Snake Man, Valleywag Missing Python Tracked Down, Valle [...]

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President Jimmy Carter gave the welcoming remarks for Google Atlanta’s Open House Thursday. President Carter stated that his life has been transformed by Google, and that it would be hard to find many people in the developed world for whom that statement isn’t true. He gave a specific example of researching the Revolutionary War for one of the books he authored – his old habit of checking out 50 books at a time from the library has now been replaced by Google and he no longer knows the librarians’ names. President Carter noted that Google has brought together and benefited the whole [...]

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The Natural Search Blog documented their undercover tour of a new Google office in Dallas, Texas - that appears to be the new home of the Google Audio group. Here are some of their findings: Small cube space Very short dividing walls Little privacy Most cubes are in 4 work group blocks Nice spy work! [...]

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Ed Kohler makes a pitch for Google to come to St. Paul, Minnesota -- and it's both a fun and compelling one. He points out that Ford is abandoning its Twin Cities Assembly Plant that comes complete with its own hydro-electric power station, handy for power-hungry (that's electric power I'm talking about) Google. But frankly, I think Larry and Sergey would find the underground tunnels a sweet enough reason to grab the giant area smack in the middle of the Twin Cities. The five coolest reasons from his pitch: Power Plant: 100 million kilowatts of energy per year from the included hydro-electri [...]

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Ask.com, Intuit bringing new data centers to state reports that Ask.com has selected Washington State for the location of a new data center, designed to help save Ask.com money on power. Although Ask.com did not mention which building they have selected, we know they "signed a lease in an existing building in Moses Lake." Rumors are that they have picked the Titan building, which is in a "former NORAD Missile Control Center." In related news, Google's North Carolina deal may get reviewed by the Senate Finance Committee, according to this AP story. Senate leader Marc Basnight "said he will [...]

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Google put pressure on legislators to stay quiet at WCNC-TV reports that during Google's negotiations with North Carolina to house a huge server farm, lawmakers in North Carolina were pressured to keep quiet about Google's tax break demands. State Commerce Secretary Jim Fain was told that if it was not kept quiet, Google would possibly end negotiations with the state. Jim Fain said it "bothered me" for having to "work in the dark" and that Google did not "respect the laws of the land" during the process. In the end, North Carolina did win Google's business and Google did get their tax break [...]

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If you have been wondering where Danny Sullivan has been over the past week or so, I have spotted a post at SEOMoz that has recent pictures of Danny. Danny, Rand and friends were invited over to Google's Kirkland office, the place where most of the Google Webmaster Central team is based, Saturday night. There are some cool pictures of the Google Kirkland office at SEOMoz. In reality, Danny has been traveling, meeting with various search companies and should be back in full swing in the next day or so. [...]

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Google Plans N.C. Data Center by Forbes confirms Google has selected North Carolina over South Carolina as the location for their huge data center. Yesterday, we wrote how the Carolina's are bidding against each other to win Google's business. Google will be spending about $600 million on their new data center and should employee 210 people in the region of Lenoir. People in that region currently average an annual salary of $28,000, the jobs available at Google will average about $48,300. Congrats Andy! [...]

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